Its been more than a year since I stopped tracking my expenses on a daily basis. When I first started out my financial journey, I wanted to find out how much I was spending on each specific item so that I can streamline it accordingly. However, after a few years doing that, it became quite pointless and it also restricted my life too much as when I spent a little more for any day, I would feel the pinch. So, I decided to gave it up and just keep track once a month instead.
I wanted to know how did I fare after I lessen my tight on my spending so I reviewed the numbers and plotted out some charts:
Unfortunately, I lost some of my expenses data in 2016 as I accidentally deleted the sheet in my excel file. Looking at the other months, there were some months which I over spend especially for this year. The green bars shows my basic monthly income from my full time job while the blue line shows my monthly expenses.
Instead of focusing on reducing expenses, I focused on increasing my income instead. Despite changing job in Jan this year, it wasn't really a big difference as the pay increase is just about 10%+. On the other hand, I manage to get side income through other means such as providing consultancy services, working with affiliates and sponsors on my blog and dividends from stocks investment. This is how the chart looks like with the total income:
The income bars become very irregular as the income from other sources are unpredictable, sometimes more while sometimes less. It is also because of the other sources of income that I can still have some substantial savings despite the increased expenses.
In fact, other sources of income this year so far has been able to cover all my expenses which means I could save 100% of my full time job income.
It took many years of hard work and opportunities seeking to get other sources of income which is a goal I embarked on many years back to create multiple sources of income after getting inspired by a book I read.
To create more income, one thing I learnt is that we must find something which we have the passion for. I have the passion for finance, investments and housing and property so I went into mortgage consultancy. After 2 years of doing it, I still feel passionate whenever I can advise someone on their affordability for a new property they are intending to buy or I can help someone save some money through refinancing their loans. It also helps that I do the consultancy service without relying on the income for survival. I can give advise without expecting to earn from it.
Blogging is also a passion. Writing on finance and investments is what I like to do. This blog has existed for 4 years plus now and I can't believe how I can still manage to write. To me, this is like a journal as well as a platform where I hope to reach out to more people on the importance of financial planning. This was the purpose which gave birth to this blog and it has been an amazing journey where I got to know some friends along the way and receive heartwarming emails from readers like yourself.
Hope this post is an inspiration on what you can do for your future too.
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